Electrical lines proposed on easement for industrial park; some opposition

Ben Pounds Staff Reporter

Thursday

Nov 7, 2019 at 11:38 AM

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — City of Oak Ridge Electric Director Jack Suggs and City Manager Mark Watson have proposed new electric lines be installed to provide power to Horizon Center.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — City of Oak Ridge Electric Director Jack Suggs and City Manager Mark Watson have proposed new electric lines be installed to provide power to Horizon Center.

The lines will be near, but not directly in Black Oak Ridge Conservation Easement (BORCE). Suggs said he will deliberately avoid the easement. Instead it will run through what Suggs called an adjacent “natural area” owned by the U.S. Department of Energy in some places and in other places run through Horizon Center itself. Suggs said the lines will encourage more businesses to locate in the Horizon Center.

The city Industrial Development Board passed a resolution at its Monday, Nov. 4, meeting to let its Chairman David Wilson grant an easement to the city for part of the route that runs through Horizon Center. However, as passed by IDB, that easement is contingent on whether buffer zones as Suggs proposed will be required between the electrical lines and a gravel road currently used as a greenway by cyclists and pedestrians.

Horizon Center is an industrial park managed by the IDB on former DOE-owned land. It currently includes LeMonde Composites, but also several vacant parcels.

Richard Chinn, an IDB member, said the Horizon Center will be “worthless” without the additional electrical power.

Suggs said he is still waiting to hear back from DOE officials regarding its portion of the land involved.

“If DOE says no, we will regroup,” Suggs said, adding that the city will try to meet any objections DOE has with the project. However, he said DOE preferred the lines running on its own land in certain places rather than entirely going through the Horizon Center site.

The project has already encountered some opposition, including from Charlie Hensley, an Oak Ridge Municipal Planning Commission member and former City Council member.

Suggs told reporters after the meeting that the new power line and poles will cost $1.8 million to $2 million and a possible new transformer for the project may cost between $1 millon and $1.5 million. He said the city had not yet decided how it might pay for the project. However, he said the city electric fund operates like a business with investments recovered over time.

He also said he will give another presentation on the project to the Oak Ridge Environmental Quality Advisory Board on Thursday. EQAB is a city board. The meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the Municipal Building Training Room.

Route

The project as Suggs described it involves a 69 kilovolt line with two smaller lines under it, providing about 60 megawatts in total.

“It would supply the power that you need, anything reasonable in these lots,” he said, including manufacturing or data centers.

The first segment of the new lines would run above the patrol road that runs alongside the easement, which was referred to as BORCE during the meeting. Suggs said the Electric Department will clear trees and “anything that is large and growing” within a 50 foot easement on either side of the lines. However, that 50 foot easement would not include the BORCE.

DOE provided the BORCE as part of a settlement and Suggs told The Oak Ridger he has avoided putting the lines there directly. He said outside the easement, however, and somewhat into the neighboring BORCE, the city may clear dead or diseased trees that might cause a problem for the lines. He said the city does not remove healthy trees from its easements. Then after that section, it will go into the Horizon Center, then into a “natural area” that DOE manages but isn't part of the settlement, then back into the Horizon Center land.

Why?

Suggs said in his presentation that Horizon Center has 325 acres of land for development, and it will require 5 to 50 megawatts of electricity per lot.

Also he said the city had “inadequate power” for even its existing customers.

Watson and Steve Jones, an economic development consultant for the city, both said the city has lost potential industry at the site due to the lack of electricity, even though the IDB has worked on clearing the land and other tasks preparing it for future businesses including watering grass.

“In 10 years since I've been here, you have had one sale of a building with LeMonde … Literally nothing has transpired in this hope for the future from an industrial standpoint. So what we have to decide is is it going to happen?” Watson said. A 2018 map on the Horizon Center's official website however lists a few other businesses including Philotechnics, RRP LLC and ORNL Federal Credit Union.

While Watson said Horizon Center had enough power for an office park, “office parks are not popular today.”

Jones told The Oak Ridger industrial businesses interested in the site have wanted a guarantee of the electrical power necessary to operate there.

Wilson said the DOE had prohibited the IDB against developing the area for residential use, instead only allowing it for industry or offices. Chinn pointed out a nearby airport, which is proposed, might make the area unattractive to future residents as a neighborhood.

“I hope we don't miss that opportunity to attract large corporations,” Wilson said.

Jones also said that some businesses prefer to locate on the Horizon Center land rather than on the nearby Heritage Center land at the formert K-25 site because they prefer to avoid potential risks that might come with previous uses.

Opposition

Hensley has spoke through email about this issue to the environmental group Advocates for Oak Ridge Reservation, (AFORR) city officials and media including The Oak Ridger.

“The only way to stop this is with a public outcry,” he stated in an email. In another he called it a “potential major impact to our greenway system.”

Watson and Suggs said they planned to talk to AFORR next week.

Watson, in statements to IDB, said the city will talk to groups interested in bike trails and other recreational activities there.

“We need to have their opinions taken into account, to see if this plan is something we need to move forward on,” he said. Suggs said the project will not result in closing the gravel road that cyclists currently use near the proposed lines except during construction.

Call Ben Pounds at (865) 220-5502 and follow him on Twitter @Bpoundsjournal.

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